


Building Skywards

by zeldainhiding



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist Grantaire, Clubbing, Depression, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Grantaire & Éponine Thénardier Friendship, M/M, POV Grantaire (Les Misérables), Poet Jehan, Political Campaigns, Triumvirate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27217630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldainhiding/pseuds/zeldainhiding
Summary: university fic, with lots of inspiration taken from my own first year of university. central relationship is enjolras/grantaire since it's from R's pov but really it's a fic about depression, art, and friendship.i just love les amis oktitle from "machines" by biffy clyro, a song i've always associated with grantaire - "i've started falling apart, i've stopped savouring life. i've forgotten how good it could be to feel alive."
Relationships: Combeferre/Éponine Thénardier, Courfeyrac/Jean Prouvaire, Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Joly/Bossuet Laigle/Musichetta





	Building Skywards

Three things about Grantaire:

Firstly, that Grantaire wears his apathy with much more care than he wears his clothes. His only real aim is to have ironic disaffection leaking from his every pore, but it takes more effort to be effortless than most people would imagine, and every single witty retort from Grantaire is a point of pride for him. Needless to say, his list of points of pride lengthens steadily every day.

Earlier today, Grantaire walked into the kitchen of their hall block for some breakfast, and Bahorel had dared to suggest that perhaps two in the afternoon was too late for breakfast.

Grantaire had been midway through offering him a chocolate mini muffin when the new boy Marius had wandered in, looking a little like a lost puppy. (As per usual).

‘I’m vegan, fucker. You know this,’ Bahorel had been saying.

‘Your own sad choice.’

‘Sad choice to have morals, Grantaire?’

‘Mmm, dear god, that is one hundred percent a sad choice. Morals are grotesque things.’

Grantaire reckoned that Bahorel had muttered something about Grantaire himself being a grotesque thing, but Marius had started banging plates around in the corner and he’d kind of missed it.

‘Yo, are you trying to wake up the whole apartment block?’

Marius looked confused and Grantaire snorted. Bahorel laughed at both of them.

‘Ignore him, Marius. He’s just a slob. Everyone else has been awake for hours.’

‘Right? Uh, cool!’ He turned away, still looking confused. ‘Does anyone want a, uh, drink of anything?’ He waved the kettle above his head for some reason, and Grantaire made a mental note to use his charming nervousness to obtain as many free coffees as possible in the future. (Until Marius cottoned on. People always did, to Grantaire’s utter disappointment.)

The second thing is that whilst Grantaire prides himself on his apathetic humour and snide cynicism, sometimes his emotions come out after all. And it is always when there are other people are in need.

‘I can’t believe it. Can’t fucking believe it,’ Eponine was gasping through the cloud of cigarette smoke around her face, and if they smoked a little longer and the wind was a little weaker, perhaps it would be enough to cover the clear sparkle of tears at the corners of her eyes, but it wasn’t, not quite.

‘It’s shitty,’ Grantaire was forced to agree, and was midway through formulating a point, tip of his own cigarette glowing orange in the late afternoon light, when Eponine burst back into her furious diatribe.

‘Not fucking kidding it’s shitty! Seven years of high school being his fucking puppy dog, seven years of accidental rejection after rejection, and now that I finally, I _finally_ think I can move on, the _fucker_ -‘ her voice broke on this word, and Grantaire simply laid a hand on hers, and took another lungful of cigarette smoke with his other, ‘he thinks he can just transfer _here_! This is my place, R. My university. I just – I just wanted some freedom. Not just, you know, from him, but- well- it was a part of the appeal, you know? And now here he is, on my _fucking_ corridor in my _fucking_ halls.’

Eponine is not a tactile person, so it said a lot to Grantaire when she curled up her hand in his.

‘We will deal with this, Ep, and I will help you.’

Grantaire thought he could tell why Eponine wasn’t able to respond to that, but he kept his eyes forward and blew out another cloud of smoke, so that she could pretend she wasn’t crying, should she want to. Eponine was the sort of girl who despised nothing more than showing weakness, and that was a feeling that Grantaire could certainly relate to.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, just smoking and holding hands, Eponine silently pulling herself back together at the edges.

‘Thanks, R.’

‘I haven’t done shit, Ep-‘ she tried to interrupt him then, ‘but I will, one hundred percent, when you need me to.’

‘That’s- that’s-‘ she looked up at him, this time not hiding her look of genuine gratitude, ‘that’s so, so much more than enough.’

Grantaire shrugged, one-shouldered. ‘S’what friends do. Plus, it means I get to try and hook you up with people,’ they both giggled, watching as someone rounded the corner to their apartment block. ‘Speaking of which,’ Grantaire muttered at her, letting out a low whistle, ‘who is this sexy motherfucker? I haven’t seen him before.’

The thing about being a smoker is that you spend a lot of time stood outside doors (or sat on the recycling bins outside the main entrance of your apartment block, if you were Eponine and Grantaire), which whilst having its significant drawbacks (bad weather was the devil), did mean you got a pretty comprehensive knowledge of who was in at what time. Which meant this radiant guy with the wild blonde hair, struggling under a ridiculous stack of books was quite an odd sight, as Grantaire knew that if he’d literally ever seen him before in his life, he would have remembered it.

Eponine looked at the new boy/nerd/actual Greek god, and then back up at Grantaire, an amused look on her face.

‘Oh my God, don’t you dare,’ Grantaire started, at almost exactly the same time that Eponine yelled to call him over.

‘Struggling with your books?’ Grantaire mumbled, trying rapidly to think of a way to make this less awkward, ‘uh, you want a hand?’

‘I’m quite-‘ he started, and then stopped immediately, as he registered the question that Eponine had shot at him. Which, by the way, had been ‘So, are you single?’.

‘Um, well. Excuse me, uh – was that a… a _pick-up line_?’

Grantaire looked at Eponine, who seemed to be glowing with amusement at this boy’s clear discomfort, and Grantaire vowed to murder her once he was gone. ‘You see, I’m not really-‘

‘Into girls? That’s fine, my friend R here isn’t either!’

‘I- what?’ the guy stumbled a little, turning to stare at Grantaire and almost losing his grasp on the stupidly large pile of books.

Grantaire stared back for a second – he really was beautiful – before gathering himself. ‘Sorry if my friend is making you uncomfortable, she’s had a really bad day and this is just her way of joking.’ He shot a clear look back to Eponine, and she preened. ‘My name’s Grantaire, and please ignore everything she said,’ he gave a weak grin. ‘You want a cigarette?’

He had been looking slightly mollified by Grantaire’s words until the last sentence, when he tensed up again, brow shifting from confusion to disapproval.

‘No thank you.’ The boy straightened his shoulders, looking towards the front doors of the block, ‘I actually _care_ about my lungs, without even getting started on all of the vile aspects of free-market capitalism that that shit fuels.’ He gave them one final haughty look before storming inside.

‘Jesus fuck, talk about a stick up your ass,’ Eponine growled, as Grantaire watched him walk away.

The third thing is that Grantaire is recovering, and it’s because of his friends.

Peaking in your mid-teens is never where you want to be in life, but it’s who Grantaire is, and they are the ones trying to convince him that you can peak more than once. Maybe.

Since they moved into student halls last semester, Feuilly brings him cups of coffee every time he finds him working through the night, and Bahorel’s been taking away his bottles during the day, and Eponine deleted Montparnasse - their dealer -'s number from her phone the other week. And sometimes he yells or gets angry or sad, but mostly he just tells them how much he loves them all. Nowadays, Grantaire even does his laundry. (Sometimes.)

He still takes a shot of whiskey in his morning coffee, but his friends don’t know that, and it helps him settle his stomach.

***

Tonight it was midnight, and Grantaire was sat in the common room with his laptop and his books, writing up the iconographic analysis he’d been working on for the last couple of nights. Cosette had packed up a couple of hours ago, telling him he’d be best getting some sleep, but his tutor expected this essay tomorrow and Grantaire was damn well determined to do it.

If that meant staying up, it meant staying up.

‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise anyone else was in here,’ Grantaire looked up to see the gorgeous boy from earlier hovering on the balls of his feet, arms once again stacked up with books, ‘sorry if I disturbed you, I’ll just be going-‘

Grantaire looked pointedly along the 12-seat table he was sat at alone, and then turned back to the guy, eyebrows raised.

‘Should you wish to join me in here, I imagine we could make room.’

He stared for a second, as though trying to figure out whether Grantaire was joking, before awkwardly placing his books on the table.

‘Enjolras,’ he said quickly, sticking his arm out poker-straight in Grantaire’s direction.

‘I’m Grantaire, think I said that before, can’t really remember though, since it wasn’t honestly the best ever introduction I’ve made.’

‘Was the girl – person –‘ he appeared to mentally slap himself, ‘Was your friend purposely trying to make me uncomfortable? I was confused.’

‘Well, yeah, probably,’ Enjolras suddenly looked a little upset, and Grantaire rushed to rectify things, ‘but Ep’s like that with everyone. S’just how she is.’

‘…Ep?’

‘Eponine. She’s one of my best mates, uh, lives on this corridor here,’ he waved an arm towards his corridor before plonking himself back down in his chair. Enjolras sat on one on the other side of the table rather more gracefully.

‘Ah, okay. I just moved onto the second floor.’

‘Oh, you’ll probably have met Jehan then. He’s in a couple of my art seminars.’

‘I’ve not really met many people yet,’ Enjolras said sadly, ‘You do art?’

‘Well, kinda. I do Performative Arts with Art History. Jehan does Performative Arts with Creative Writing.’

‘Performative Arts?’

Grantaire raised his eyebrows. ‘Is this the bit where you ask if I’m a dancer, and then laugh because I’m far too fucking ugly for the idea of me in a tutu to be palatable? Because yes, I dance. No, I don’t do ballet. And anyway, I spend most of my time painting.’

‘That’s… interesting. I’m afraid I don’t know very much about art.’

‘Me neither, mate.’

Enjolras looked confused again, and Grantaire wondered if he’d ever even heard of the concept of a joke.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment if you're feeling up to it, i can't express how much they mean to me
> 
> zelda <3


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